My blog Quite Alone

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Gimme shelter

A great story out of Dubai, where the transport authorities – to their credit – are trying to get people out of their cars and onto public transport.

As well as the new metro – which opens on 9th September (9/9/09 – don’t ask me what the significance is, other than a good headline) – there are several new bus routes coming in. But standing around by the side of the road in 50-degree heat isn’t very pleasant, so Dubai has air-conditioned its bus shelters.

(It’s so Dubai. But don’t get it mixed up with Dubai’s air-conditioned beach, which has now been abandoned, thank heavens…)

Good news is no news, so I missed it when the a/c shelters were put in.

But bad news sells – so it makes the National when the a/c shelters break down.

However, as the manufacturers pointed out, they only fail when it gets really hot outside… So, um, that’s OK then… The Kipp Report had it best: “The air-conditioners ‘trip at intervals’. Which intervals? Like, noon?”

Yes, I figured there weren’t many bus shelters in the outback – I was just envisaging a little cool, Dubai-style air-conditioned bothy, complete with Z-bed, stove, teabags and wifi… Never mind; flight of fancy…

FWIW Swiss tram stops have electronic countdown indicators showing arrival times of the next few trams. They don’t really need them, though, since trams, trains and buses all stick to their timetables with to-the-minute accuracy. That’s why they don’t bother with electronic indicators at bus stops: if the paper timetable says 13.01, that’s when the bus will be there.

The Swiss know it, too. That stop will be deserted at 12.55: everyone only bothers to turn up in the two minutes before the scheduled time because they know the bus will be neither early nor late… It brings a whole new meaning and definition (and connotation) to the term ‘public transport’…